“Sometimes what you remember is their voices again, coming on inside you like strung lights in your blood, certain words they’d tongue differently from anyone else, or your own name and its surprisingly infinite nuances. And sometimes you remember their hands, not touching you but draped over a steering wheel or cupped briefly around a cigarette, anywhere you could watch them in their life apart from you, knowing how they’d find you later, blind but sure, and come to rest where you needed them. You remember the hardness of their bellies, the soft line of hair that swirls down toward the cock, the look of each one that entered you and then withdrew, or lay quietly inside awhile longer before slipping away like a girl sneaking out in the middle of the night, high heels dangling from one hand as her stockinged feet drew sparks from the rug. Sometimes you wander the house all day, the fog outside stalled at the tops of trees, refusing to rise higher and reveal the world you hope is still there, the one in which you’re still a woman some beautiful man might helplessly move toward. And you remember how one looked at you the first time you undressed, how another didn't mind that you cried. Sometimes it’s enough just to say their names like a rosary, ordinary names linked by nothing but the fact that they belong to men who loved you. And finally you depend on that, you pray it’s enough to last, if it has to, the rest of your life.”
—Kim Addonizio, “Getting Older”
#133: “As men and women get older their ability to hear high pitched sounds diminishes. The ability to taste sweet foods also decreases with age.”
True. True.
The sense of hearing decreasing actually has a fancy name: presbycusis. So it does happen. There’s also a special ringtone for teenagers and young adults that older adults can’t hear.
Taste and smell, which work together, also decrease as people get older. The ability to taste salty and sweet decreases after about age 60, if it does happen. This happens because as you get older, you also lose taste buds.
To My Twenties
How lucky that I ran into you
When everything was possible
For my legs and arms, and with hope in my heart
And so happy to see any woman—
O woman! O my twentieth year!
Basking in you, you
Oasis from both growing and decay
Fantastic unheard of nine- or ten-year oasis
A palm tree, hey! And then another
And another—and water!
I’m still very impressed by you. Whither,
Midst falling decades, have you gone? Oh in what lucky fellow,
Unsure of himself, upset, and unemployable
For the moment in any case, do you live now?
From my window I drop a nickel
By mistake. With
You I race down to get it
But I find there on
The street instead, a good friend
X—— N——, who says to me
Kenneth do you have a minute?
And I say yes! I am in my twenties!
I have plenty of time! In you I marry,
In you I first go to France; I make my best friends
In you, and a few enemies. I
Write a lot and am living all the time
And thinking about living. I loved to frequent you
After my teens and before my thirties.
You three together in a bar
I always preferred you because you were midmost
Most lustrous apparently strongest
Although now that I look back on you
What part have you played?
You never, ever, were stingy.
What you gave me you gave whole
But as for telling
Me how best to use it
You weren’t a genius at that.
Twenties, my soul
Is yours for the asking
You know that, if you ever come back.
-Kenneth Koch
Growing up sucks.
“It’s okay to be mad but not to be mean.”
How many times have you been so hurt by someone that all you wanted was for them to feel the same way? Recently I had a falling out with my best friends of 9 years. Over the years we grew older together and by doing that we grew as people together. We were sisters. But this last year we each branched out, made different friends, made different plans for our lives, made different choices. I was growing spiritually and they were making choices with their boyfriends that I highly disagreed with. I was single and I was being put on the backburner with them. No longer were we the three best friends that were attached at the hip. We were three people who never talked, never even saw each other. I didn’t know how to vocalize my frustration with them. So I did what came easy. I talked about them. Every little thing that ever annoyed me about them got blown out of proportion. Unfortunately I didn’t think about how they would feel if they ever heard what I was saying. And even more unfortunately, they did hear about it. Through many events of making up, briefly being friends again then being angry over something, we are no longer friends. And I can’t help but look back on this last year and think that if I didn’t act the way I did would we still be friends. That even though they didn’t make any effort to keep the friendship going, I could have. I could have pushed harder. Apologized more. Not held so many grudges.
But then I think of Heavenly Fathers plan for me. I was baptized about a week after our final fall out. Would they have been there if we were still friends? Probably not. And that’s the thing I think about. That day, I made a promise to be a different person. To live my life differently. They were apart of my life for so long that it would have been hard to change while I was with them. They represented everything I didn’t want to be anymore. I still care about them. In my mind, we’re still family. But I’m on a path that they can’t go on unless they make some changes that their not willing to.
In the end, I sent a message to one of them expressing exactly what I wrote here. And that through the years, I hope we can talk every now and then and see where life has taken us. She never responded. I didn’t expect it and I told her so, but out of everything that pained me the most.
Age Old Question
For so many reasons I have always had a hard time getting older. I mean going back to as long as I can remember. The idea of being forever young and playful appealed to me. Earlier this year I had a birthday. Today is not my birthday. It was at this birthday that for the first time I lied about my age. Someone asked me my age and I froze. I said I was 29. I kept this going and going. I couldn’t say the number for whatever reason. I had never had anything like it before! Today I am coming clean. I am done about worrying about a stupid number. I am in the best shape of my life and the happiest I can remember. Everyone I am 29 30 years old. Let the crypt keeping begin!
This was my artistic form of 30. In case you didn’t catch that!
